How do I create new Today screens?

[Guest jlmwrite]

I've had my AT&T Tilt (stock ROM w/WM6) for about a week now, and trying to customize the Today screen is killing me!

Having had a Smartphone for the past three years, I'd gotten pretty darn good at creating home screens in XML. Easy enough, especially using essentially a template that I could edit in Notepad -- set my wallpaper, chose a very few plugins such as date, time, carrier, and missed calls, selected the font size and position on the screen, and voila! Simple yet eyecatching home screens with a minimum of info.

So... After a few days of messing around, I bought SPB Mobile Shell. Nice software with lots of features, but way different than what I wanted. I remembered Chris' excellent WisBar from my old days of using an HP Jornado, so went over to Lakeridge and was excited to see WisBar is indeed alive and kicking. So excited that I bought WAD as well.

One evening of dinking around, and thought I was in heaven. I created exactly the Today screen I wanted: beautiful, full-screen wallpaper, placed the date and time where I wanted 'em, with the time in a big enough font for me, had the SMS and missed call indicators sitting on two custom icons. My only gripe (initially) is that the current version of WAD doesn't support the carrier ID. So be it.

But after several days of using Wisbar and WAD, I'm having performance issues. Often times, the screen hangs momentarily when choosing items. Changing from portrait to landscape is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow -- on the order of 45 seconds. Other than MSVC, I don't have anything else loading or running.

Back to the drawing board.

All I want to do is to be able to create a simple Today screen again, the way I did with the SmartPhone. Not a theme, mind you; that's easily done, and simply changing the wallpaper isn't what I want. It doesn't appear that WM6 on the PPC supports the *.home.xml file; there's not even a \Application Data\Home directory. Did several hours of searching here and on xda, and still not coming up with any real answers.

The question is: WITHOUT using any 3rd party software, is there a way to create a custom Today screen? Or, to put it another way, what file(s) does WM6 on the PPC look for to decide what the default Today screen should look like? What's the name/location of the default Today screen? Is that an editable file?

I've gotten an incredible amount of info from so many contributors here over the past 4 or 5 years, and hope that someone can help me with this question.

Thanks!

Edited June 3, 2008 by jlmwrite

[Guest jlmwrite]

OK, does anyone know the file name and/or attributes for the default Today screen for WM 6 then?

[Guest Voda Kirkland]

nevermind.

Edited June 9, 2008 by Voda Kirkland

[Guest myblackjack2.com]

The question is: WITHOUT using any 3rd party software, is there a way to create a custom Today screen? Or, to put it another way, what file(s) does WM6 on the PPC look for to decide what the default Today screen should look like? What's the name/location of the default Today screen? Is that an editable file?

Bump - from what i've seen WM6.1 Pro generic today screen XML's just define colors - and don't really allow you to place elements on the screen. I've had the same question as jlmwrite but havent found a satisfactory answer... everything i've seen points to WM6.1 Pro not being able to handle even basic layout with a 3rd party plugin.

Thoughts?

[Guest Parthaa Bosu]

Hi,

thanks for your post.

I have been using PDA's since 2003 and have tried everything - Wisbar, animated today etc etc

But the point they definitely eat up a lot of RAM, and specially depending on what kind RAM size does your phone have.

so for lighter screen, 8 - 40 KB, they are aboslutely none problematic.

regards,

Parthaa Bosu

I've had my AT&T Tilt (stock ROM w/WM6) for about a week now, and trying to customize the Today screen is killing me!

Having had a Smartphone for the past three years, I'd gotten pretty darn good at creating home screens in XML. Easy enough, especially using essentially a template that I could edit in Notepad -- set my wallpaper, chose a very few plugins such as date, time, carrier, and missed calls, selected the font size and position on the screen, and voila! Simple yet eyecatching home screens with a minimum of info.

So... After a few days of messing around, I bought SPB Mobile Shell. Nice software with lots of features, but way different than what I wanted. I remembered Chris' excellent WisBar from my old days of using an HP Jornado, so went over to Lakeridge and was excited to see WisBar is indeed alive and kicking. So excited that I bought WAD as well.

One evening of dinking around, and thought I was in heaven. I created exactly the Today screen I wanted: beautiful, full-screen wallpaper, placed the date and time where I wanted 'em, with the time in a big enough font for me, had the SMS and missed call indicators sitting on two custom icons. My only gripe (initially) is that the current version of WAD doesn't support the carrier ID. So be it.

But after several days of using Wisbar and WAD, I'm having performance issues. Often times, the screen hangs momentarily when choosing items. Changing from portrait to landscape is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow -- on the order of 45 seconds. Other than MSVC, I don't have anything else loading or running.

Back to the drawing board.

All I want to do is to be able to create a simple Today screen again, the way I did with the SmartPhone. Not a theme, mind you; that's easily done, and simply changing the wallpaper isn't what I want. It doesn't appear that WM6 on the PPC supports the *.home.xml file; there's not even a \Application Data\Home directory. Did several hours of searching here and on xda, and still not coming up with any real answers.

The question is: WITHOUT using any 3rd party software, is there a way to create a custom Today screen? Or, to put it another way, what file(s) does WM6 on the PPC look for to decide what the default Today screen should look like? What's the name/location of the default Today screen? Is that an editable file?

I've gotten an incredible amount of info from so many contributors here over the past 4 or 5 years, and hope that someone can help me with this question.

Thanks!